This should be a very short post... since I have no solutions yet, pretty much all I can do here is brainstorm. My two biggest concerns now are how to keep track of the points, and how to address penalties (late work, incomplete work, missing work.)
My class has been using Edmodo this year with excellent results. Having all calendar dates, due dates, homework submission bin, and communications all linked together online has helped me organise myself and helped a lot of my students organise themselves too. I am thinking to use badges as one alternative for keeping track of points. I am also considering index cards as the simplest way to keep track, but I have a feeling they will go missing. ClassDojo looked very interesting, but it ended up being restrictive for what I wanted to do, which involved giving a variable amount of points for an action. (That said, I would still like to incorporate ClassDojo in some way.) So far, it looks like it will be Edmodo, although I think it would be a LOT easier if I could award badges from the app.
As for penalties, I'm not sure if I want them to be an explicit part of the game. One of the things that attracted me to the idea of gamification was that it is merit-based, not deficit-based - you start at zero and GAIN points through your positive actions, instead of starting at 100% and then losing points for your failures. I am really attracted to the idea of rewarding merit instead of punishing deficit. Current psychology and educational theory seem to be pointing in that direction as well. So, I think I will continue to leave consequences aside from the game, at least for now. What I am considering maybe implementing later is a percentage-based penalty - you lose 5% of your final score for each day it is late. We shall see.
Next time: Roll out! What happens when we start?
My class has been using Edmodo this year with excellent results. Having all calendar dates, due dates, homework submission bin, and communications all linked together online has helped me organise myself and helped a lot of my students organise themselves too. I am thinking to use badges as one alternative for keeping track of points. I am also considering index cards as the simplest way to keep track, but I have a feeling they will go missing. ClassDojo looked very interesting, but it ended up being restrictive for what I wanted to do, which involved giving a variable amount of points for an action. (That said, I would still like to incorporate ClassDojo in some way.) So far, it looks like it will be Edmodo, although I think it would be a LOT easier if I could award badges from the app.
As for penalties, I'm not sure if I want them to be an explicit part of the game. One of the things that attracted me to the idea of gamification was that it is merit-based, not deficit-based - you start at zero and GAIN points through your positive actions, instead of starting at 100% and then losing points for your failures. I am really attracted to the idea of rewarding merit instead of punishing deficit. Current psychology and educational theory seem to be pointing in that direction as well. So, I think I will continue to leave consequences aside from the game, at least for now. What I am considering maybe implementing later is a percentage-based penalty - you lose 5% of your final score for each day it is late. We shall see.
Next time: Roll out! What happens when we start?
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